Local voices, Strange Things and the guides, written by people who live here.
81 stories
Story · Guides · 12 minute read
Cotswolds itineraries from one day to a week: how many days you need, a day by car or by train, two days in the north, three days north to south, five days across two regions, a week with two bases or on the Cotswold Way, and themed weekends for gardens, walks, dogs and winter.
Story · Guides · 11 minute read
Blenheim, Sudeley, Berkeley, Snowshill, Chastleton, Stanway, Kelmscott, Rodmarton, Dyrham, Lacock and the ruins: the Cotswolds' great houses and castles, who built them, when they open, and which suit children, gardeners or a day by train.
Story · Guides · 10 minute read
How to do the Cotswolds as a day trip from London: by train from Paddington to Moreton-in-Marsh for Stow and Bourton, to Kingham for the Evenlode villages, to Kemble for Cirencester and Bibury or to Bath for Lacock, with worked plans, the car and parking, and tours compared.
Story · Strange Things · 3 minute read
In Berkeley churchyard, below the Cotswold edge, a chest tomb remembers Dicky Pearce, the Earl of Suffolk's fool, killed in revelry at Berkeley Castle.
Story · Guides · 7 minute read
The Downton Abbey locations you can visit around the Cotswolds: Bampton as the village of Downton, Cogges as Yew Tree Farm and Lacock's livestock show and royal parade, with what each custodian confirms.
Story · History · 8 minute read
The express that stopped at Adlestrop in June 1914, the poem Edward Thomas made of it, the station that closed in 1966, and the sign and bench in the village bus shelter today.
Story · History · 10 minute read
The writers, composers, scientists, queens and prime ministers whose lives are tied to Cotswold places, from Tyndale and Katherine Parr to Laurie Lee, Holst and Edward Thomas, and where to find their traces.
Story · Guides · 6 minute read
Where the BBC's Father Brown is filmed in the Cotswolds: Blockley as Kembleford, its church as St Mary's, and the railway station, villages and tower that have appeared since 2013, with how to visit each.
Story · Guides · 11 minute read
Free things to do in the Cotswolds: open commons and viewpoints, Neolithic tombs and hill forts, ruins, wool churches, free museums in Malmesbury, Stroud, Woodstock and Burford, the Cotswold Way and Blenheim's public footpaths.
Story · Guides · 4 minute read
What you need to know to marry in the Cotswolds: giving notice, approved venues, the registrar's fees and the rules for a civil ceremony in England.
Story · Guides · 12 minute read
You can see the Cotswolds without a car: trains from London Paddington reach Moreton-in-Marsh, Kingham, Charlbury, Kemble and Stroud in 70 to 90 minutes, and buses go on to Stow, Bourton, Bibury and Chipping Campden. Every station, its bus, the fares and the limits.
Story · History · 8 minute read
The composer of The Planets was born in Cheltenham, was organist at Wyck Rissington as a teenager and wrote a symphony called The Cotswolds: where to see and hear his Cotswold years.
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